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A SERMON,

PKEACHED ON

SUNDAY, THE TWENTY-EIGHTH OF SEPTEMBER, 1856.

Srinitp (Efyapd,
NEW-YORK,
BY THE REVD MORGAN DIX,
Assistant piituster of ffittnitj (£jmrci>.

PRINTED TOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION.

PUDNEY & RUSSELL, PRINTERS,
No. 79 John-Street. 1856.

NOTICE.

The author of the following discourse desires to say, that he pub
lishes it at the request of persons, whose position, in point of age,
experience, and dignity in the Church, is such, that he could not,
without feeling guilty of presumption and self-will, have declined
acceding to their wishes.

SERMON.

St. John xviii: 36.
"Jesus answered, My Kingdom is not of this world."
These words were spoken by our Lord Jesus
Christ under circumstances perhaps the most critical,
and certainly among the most astonishing of all, in
which, as Man, He was ever found. He was stand
ing, a prisoner, before Pilate ; the Lord of Heaven
before the representative of the greatest Empire' on
earth. Pilate had reason to think that He had been
meddling with the politics of Judea. He questioned
him accordingly as to a suspected intention of in
terfering between the government and the people, of
taking sides with one of the parties of the day, and
of entering intcj the region of those very grave ques
tions of national policy, which, at that time, filled
every mind with anxiety and a feverish expectation.
The Lord Jesus Christ had, in the former part of His
examination, observed a dignified silence. Patient
under reproaches, He had not been at the pains

to justify His moral character or to vindicate His in
tegrity. But when these latter charges were brought
against Him, He broke that silence. On this point
He would speak, not only for the information of
Pilate, but for the direction of the ministers that
were to follow Him and the people that were to be
lieve in Him. He did speak ; and in no doubtful
terms. "My kingdom," said He, "is not of this
world." The kingdom spoken of is His Church. The
history of that Church, from about the 300th year after
the Lord's ascension, illustrates at once the paramount
importance of that remark, and exhibits consequences
the most deplorable as the result of a departure from
its spirit.
We claim it as an honorable distinction of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in these United States,
that she has thus far kept in view that solemn saying
of her Lord. Of all the religious bodies in this land,
which have lasted long enough to put their principles
to the test, none can call itself in this respect her
equal. It is true that' the Churches of the Roman
obedience among us are no less free from the stain of
a political religion; but the vital union, the strict
identity which they enjoy with those abroad, render
-it impossible for us to separate the two sections in our
observation; and all the world knows, that, at the
capital city of her dominion, the Roman Church is
political, no less than a spiritual, power. As for the
various sects of Protestantism, they are, with scarcely
an exception, imbrued in the politics of the times.

From those which only dabble in them, to those which
plunge in beyond their depth, all advocate the right
and the duty of debating political questions from a
religious point of view, and maintain that the pulpit
is a proper place for their introduction and discussion.
"We, on the other hand, have held to the opposite
course. The Church has so ordered herself as i£ she
had heard the warning voice of her Divine Master
continually saying, " Enter not into this path, and go
not in the way of these men. Avoid it, pass not by
it, turn from it, and pass away."
In view, however, of some recent attempts to per
suade the clergy to change their ground in this par
ticular, it has seemed likely to be profitable to con
sider briefly some of the arguments with which those
attempts are supported. Without designing to im
pugn the motives of individuals, and with the ac
knowledgment of our belief in the sincerity of the pro
posers, we cannot too earnestly express the conviction,
that to follow their wishes would be to wander widely
from our proper sphere, and to court a danger from
which the Church has thus far, by the mercy of the
Almighty, been shielded.
It seems first in order to consider the question of
authority. It is urged that the Gospel injunctions
against Christian interference with politics refer only
to certain branches of political science, those, viz., of
currency, or ot a peculiarly commercial nature.
" Render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's, and
unto God the things that are God's." This, we have

heard it said, is the only place which can be cited as
an express direction of our Lord's ; and this refers only
to a purely financial question. There is, they go on
to say, another and a broader region of politics, that,
viz., in which moral principles aud great problems
bearing on the development or security of the nation
are involved, over which the authority of Religion is
unquestioned. However plausible such arguments may be, they
certainly deprive their originators of the claim to
being ranked among theologians. We argue from no
one text, to prove that Politics and Religion ought to
be kept asurder; from no one saying of our Blessed
Lord's, however much to the point that saying may
be. But we rest our case upon the whole course of His
conduct, upon His entire example; Never was there a
period in which a religious teacher would seem to
have been so imperatively, called to the political
arena, as in that in which the Lord dwelt in Judea.
The public questions of that time concerned no one
section, but the whole people ; on their resolution de
pended not the interest of any one party or the rights
of any particular class, but the very existence of the
Jews as a nation. It was a period at which, if ever,
she has a right to do so, Religion should have girded
on the sword and taken her place by the side of the
statesmen and soldiers of the day. The galling yoke
of foreign rule was on their necks ; hereditary institu
tions were disappearing; and judicial cruelty carried
out the work which irresponsible tyranny suggested.

It was at such a time that Christ appeared in Judea.
Owing to her, as one of her citizens, a part of the debt
shared by all, and acknowledged by His fellow-
countrymen as fit to take the lead in the settlement of
the absorbing controversies of the day, He had the
history of the nation, a pure theocracy in its origin, to
authorize a renewal of the Church and State alliance,
and a union of the ecclesiastical and secular arms for
the common safety and defence. And yet, notwith
standing all this, from the beginning of His ministry
to its end, He never made the slightest movement in
that direction. The subject of the political state of
the nation was never so much as noticed. With a
significant carefulness it was always and everywhere
ignored. If any came to Him to inquire on these
points, they received no answer but the gentle and
solemn admonition to forget the world and all its con
cerns, and to seek the kingdom of God. We cannot
mistake the meaning of the perfect consistency of our
Blessed Lord. " My kingdom," said He to Pilate, " is
not of this world." And His whole life was a com
ment on thatt declaration. He joined no party. He
furthered no sectional views. He left all the vexed
questions of the day where He found them. One
would think, to judge from the calmness and peace of
His walk and conversation among men, that the Mil-
lenial age had come, and that the whole earth was at
rest and quiet. The application of this rule to our
own times is obvious. However important the topics
which now excite the nation, they do not certainly

compare in magnitude or vital interest with those
which then racked the Jewish people; whatever agita
tion may hereafter at any time disturb our peace, it
cannot certainly exceed that to which the Jews were
then exposed. The example of Christ then, should be
the guide to His Church now. She is" His Body:
and her Clergy are His anointed servants and His
chosen representatives. Let His conduct be the rule
for theirs ; and their influence and dignity among and
before men will not, within obvious limits, be iess.
But, to leave the question of authority, and proceed
to that of expediency : we are urged with such con
siderations as these: That there is at present an in
tensity of feeling with regard to politics which
absorbs for the time all others ; that the people think
of nothing else, care to hear of nothing else; and
that they will with difficulty, if at all, listen to disqui
sitions not bearing with more or less directness upon
the paramount issue of the moment : that the popular
mind should be approached through the only avenue
by which it is accessible. Shall the Clergy, by force
of such considerations, change the line of conduct
they have hitherto pursued ? Let us consider.
If it were our place to adapt ourselves to the cir
cumstances of our position at the expense of our dis
tinctive principles, such arguments might have their
weight. Or even if we saw the possibility or the
likelihood of converting souls to holiness and leading
men to the Eternal Home in the heavens by address
ing ourselves to them as political partisans, such a

course might be excusable. But grant that this
intensity of feeling exists : how can we turn it to the
spiritual profit of men by exhibiting ourselves as
sharers in it ? What if it occupies the place which
ought to be filled by the intensity of love to God ?
May not this excitement, this ardent zeal, be incon
sistent with deep feelings on more weighty matters ?
There are other issues before the world, besides those
of the passing hour. There are the greater questions,
whether Satan shall rule or Christ ; whether the Gos
pel shall be preached to all the world, or whether
millions shall be left, through the slackness of Chris
tians, to outer darkness ; whether the Church shall
triumph in our day, or be brought lower down than
now in humiliation. Who feels intensely on these
questions ? What general excitement is there on any
one of these points? While men are cold on such
matters as these, let the Clergy beware how they de
scend to minor and transient questions. Our part is to
preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, to convert souls
to Christ, to proclaim the doctrine of the Cross to all
the world, to make ready a people prepared for the
Lord, to watch daily and nightly for His appearing.
While we fulfil this officej it is not a necessary ques
tion how far we are likely to gain the popular ear.
Whether we can influence the controversies of the
day, it is not needful for us to inquire. We were sent
to preach, whether the world will hear, or whether
it will forbear: and in so preaching, faithfully, simply,
and affectionately, we have delivered our souls. Let

10
the world look to it, whether or no it will hear our
words. But in the third place it is said that the admoni
tions of the pulpit are not practical; that they do not
contribute to the solution of the all-absorbing prob
lems with which every mind is pre-occupied, and
therefore that the pulpit has but little influence.
My brethren, judge ye whether or not the case is
fairly stated thus as between the Church and the
Political organizations of the day. We, the Clergy, are
accused of not being practical. And why? Because
in our teaching we have restricted ourselves to setting
forth to you the plain, old-fashioned message of God.
If we had pursued the contrary course ; if we had dipped
into the sea that boils around us ; if we had gone down
into the arena, and defiled our sacerdotal vestments
with the dust of worldly strife ; if we had openly
espoused the doctrines of some one of the parties of
the day, and adroitly blended with our spiritual teach
ings the maxims of the tenets of particular organiza
tions ; if we had lent the influence of the pulpit to
extending agitation, to advancing the interest of can-
dates for high office, to discussing the merits of public
questions : if we had done any of these things, no
doubt we should have been commended as practical.
But, brethren, we are pronounced unpractical. For
tunately the accusation furnishes us with a mode of
learning what the unpractical is. That is unpractical,
brethren, which we have preached to you. It is un
practical to tell you of righteousness, temperance, and

11
judgment to come. It is unpractical to tell you of God
the Father who made you, of Christ who redeemed
you, of the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth you. It is
unpractical to know nothing among you save Jesus
Christ, and Him crucified. It is unpractical to preach
of the deep and abiding love of the Almighty, of the
blessedness and peace of Heaven, of the transcendant
glory of saintship, of those supernatural powers which
work till the end for the perfecting of the saints, for
edifying of the Body of Christ. We are unpractical
when we preach to the sinner that he turn from his
evil way ; to the rich that he give liberally of his
goods ; to the young that he remember his Creator in
the days of his youth ; to the weary and heavy laden
that he bring his griefs and sorrows to the Lord of
compassion ; when we set forth, as the groundwork of
all knowledge, the fear of the Lord ; as the material
of all improvement, repentance toward God, and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ ; as the gravest subjects
of consideration those four last things, Death, the
Judgment, Heaven and Hell. These things we have
preached to you, brethren ; the plain old message of
God, received from the fathers; the Gospel, which is
more immovable than the everlasting hills; the
Word of Christ, from which no jot or tittle shall ever
pass away ; the ancient faith in which our brethren,
and they that went before, have grown up, and walked
in holiness, and fallen asleep : this Gospel we have
preached to you, with jealous care of sullying its
purity with aught drawn from the stream of passing

12
events, and striving to hand it on to those who shall
come after us, intact as when we received it. And
because we do this, and will not be political priests,
but keep to our own proper way and to our own
appointed sphere, we are called unpractical. The
Lord be the judge between those who thus accuse us
and ourselves.
But once more it has been urged, that the considera
tions by which the Church is held to the course in which
she has always walked, are those only of momentary ex
pediency. Brethren, it is hard to decide in which way
to meet this charge. Expediency ! is this indeed our
motive ? Is it to our own interest, in a worldly point of
view, to be, what we have ever been, the preachers of
righteousness to this generation ? At a time when the
attention of the public is gained in no way so readily as
through its passion for excitement and amusement, is it
through self-interest that we have abstained altogether
from the topics which we know to be uppermost in the
popular mind ? In a place of which it might with
truth be said as of Athens of old, that all its in
habitants spend their time in nothing else but either
to tell or hear some new thing, is it through con
siderations of self-interest that we have studiously
avoided giving in to the public taste, and that we have
addressed ourselves to the interminable task of draw
ing the world up towards the Church, whe i we might
have chosen the simple and easy one of lowering the.
Church towards the level of the world ? Why,
Brethren, the reflection of a moment will make this
matter plain. Where do you find crowds of hearers ?

13
Around what preachers "do they gather in such mul
titudes that there is no place left ? Is it not where
the politics of the day are among the prominent Topics
of discussion ? The surest way of drawing vast au
diences is to pursue the very course, for avoiding
which we are accu-ed of being governed by self-
interest. How inconsistent the charge ! How easily
might it be retorted ! But we have no wish to
do this. It is enough to claim, that no temporizing
expediency, no love of applause, are our guides, but a
sense of the responsibility of- our holy office, and
a respect for the intention of the Church. And
though the numbers of the Church be but small,
yet we know that the hearts of her people are
with ; us that they appreciate and approve our course :
and we would rather have that approbation from the
conservative mind of the laity, than all the wild plau
dits of the multitude whose Sunday meditations are
but the extension of their habitual week-day thoughts,
and whose religion seems but a higher type of their
political sentiments.
And yet it ought not to be denied, that in one
respect, though not in the one intended, the charge
against the Clergy, (and in point of fact against the
Laity also, for it touches the whole Church,) that this
charge against us altogether, as a body, is not without
foundation. We have, in one way, been governed by
expediency. We have, in one view of the case, been
governed by interested motives. It is by such an ex
pediency and by such motives as these. We feel, that

14
in this age of turmoil, it is expedient that there should
be one religious body safe from the outer storm ; that
there should be a refuge for those, who, in the various
sect?, are sickening at heart with the kind of miscalled
religion they have heard for years. We feel that it is to
the interest of the Church to keep herself pure, and to
preach nothing, to know nothing, but the simple Gospel
of Jesus Christ, to the end that she may gather in as
brands from the burning, the multitudes who, better
than their systems, will yet turn to her for shelter, for
knowledge, andf or grace. Brethren, it is known, that
whole congregations, disgusted with the political re
ligion and other forms of fanaticism on which their souls
have been starved, have come over, as one man, to the
Church, saying to us, " Men and Brethren, we hear
enough of national and sectional questions on the six
working days of the week ; on the Lord's Day, at least,
we want the Gospe. We have it not with us ;
we have heard that it is with you. We know the
Episcopal Church as that body which is true to her
work of Evangelizer of the nations. We come to your
pulpits and to your altars, athirst for the word of God
and hungering for the bread of life." It is matter of
truth, that such has been, in substance, the address of
whole congregations to us : and such is the address
of hundreds of individuals who pass over, unnoticed by
the world, to our ranks. Brethren, it is to our
interest, it is expedient, that we listen to these appeals.
It is to our interest, it is expedient, that we keep our
Zion holy and undeflled for the reception of those who

15
utter them. It is expedient that we do this, for their
sakes, that they may be saved through Christ forever ;
for our own, lest the loss of those souls should fall on
our consciences, and lest their blood should be on our
heads ; and if this is to be governed by considerations
of expediency and self-interest, let those who have
accused us make the most of it.
The foregoing remarks have been made, brethren,
with an earnest conviction that consequences the most
disastrous to the Church will always result from a
union of Politics and Religion. Although they would
not have been withheld, had the case unfortunately
been different, yet is there a source of thankfulness in
the belief that they are in harmony with the general
feeling of Churchmen. The disinclination of the
Clergy to adulterate their teachings, is not greater,
we hope, than the aversion of the Laity to such a
measure. Heaven forbid that it should ever be other
wise. Whatever course may in other quarters be
adopted as expedient to attract the masses and make
the pulpit popular, may the Ministry of Apostolic Suc
cession never forget that they are indeed the ambassa
dors of Christ, the stewards of the mysteries of God,
and the defenders of the faith once committed to the
saints ; and that to execute these offices fully and
faithfully is a work more than sufficient for all their
energies in an age so full as the present, of false doc
trine, heresy and schism. And while we thus accom
plish our course, what do we ask of you, brethren ?
That you support and encourage us by your confidence

16
and sympathy ; that you lend your aid to discounte
nance the factious spirit in whatever quarter it may
show itself hereafter : and that you watch with us to
keep the entrance of the Church safe from the ap
proach of all profane footsteps, and to preserve her as
indeed a temple holy unto the Lord. The spirit which
claims for religion, authority over any field of party
politics, is akin to that which in past ages linked
Church and State together, making the Clergy tem
poral rulers, and which maintains, in modern times, to
the great detriment of religion, the connection. It is
natural to desire influence in the State : ambition sug
gests to the Church what glory she might acquire, and
expediency hints at the good which might follow, if
her holy influences were directly brought to bear on
the resolution of public questions. But plainer than
either of these voices is heard that of Christ — aMy
Kingdom is not of this world." Let those words be
ever in our ears ; but especially at such times as the
present. They show the Christian his true position,
they instruct him in the necessity of walking not by
sight, but by faith; they lead him seriously and
earnestly away from the thoughts with which his
mind is too much engrossed, to the contemplation
(occasional at-least, but would that it were habitual !)
of his citizenship in another world, and his share in
interests, immeasurably outweighing those of this
present life. Well is it for him, if he hear the
admonition : well for the Church if she is constant
and unwearied in uttering it. For all things earthly

17
are the heirs of final extinction. Nations and States
alike, the rulers and the people together, pass down
wards to the common grave of all the works of man.
The feverish anxieties, the restless activity, the insa
tiate cravings of the human heart, receive their
quietus from the hand of Death. Naught remains but
the soul's better portion, the faith, which has gained a
victory over the world ; the love, which hath abounded
toward the Infinite God ; the crown of patient service
done to Him. For it is written, that " all flesh is
grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the
grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof
falleth away : but the Word of the Lord endureth
forever. This is the word which, by the Gospel, is
preached unto you." This is the word which, by
God's help, will be preached unto you, pure and
uncontaminated, in the Church, even until the end of
the world.
And now to the Most High and undivided Trinity,
God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be ascribed all
might, majesty, praise, and dominion. — Amen.

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